AtomicQuote

Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote

We were laughing but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. Our parents resorted to the lash the way flagellants in the plague years resorted to the scourge… The law did not protect us and now, in your time, the law has become an excuse for stopping and frisking you, which is to say for furthering the assault on your body. But a society that protects some people through a safety net of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral wealth but can only protect you with the club of criminal justice has either failed at enforcing its good intentions or has succeeded at something much darker. However you call it, the result was our infirmity before the criminal forces of the world.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

We were laughing but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. Our parents resorted to the lash the way flagellants in the plague years resorted to the scourge… The law did not protect us and now, in your time, the law has become an excuse for stopping and frisking you, which is to say for furthering the assault on your body. But a society that protects some people through a safety net of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral wealth but can only protect you with the club of criminal justice has either failed at enforcing its good intentions or has succeeded at something much darker. However you call it, the result was our infirmity before the criminal forces of the world.

Tags: race relations, racism in america

Related Quotes

Urging an organization to be inclusive is not an attack. It's progress.

DaShanne Stokes

Urging an organization to be inclusive is not an attack. It's progress.

Tags: bias, biased, biases, bigot, bigotry, discrimination, diversity, equal rights, equal treatment, equality

Calling for an end to hate shouldn't be treated as a punishable offense.

DaShanne Stokes

Calling for an end to hate shouldn't be treated as a punishable offense.

Tags: bias, biases, civil rights, civil rights movement, discriminating, discrimination, hate, hate crimes, hatred, human rights

...After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is p...

Tim Wise

...After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is p...

Tags: american culture, black and white, black history, george zimmerman, hypocricy, privilege, race relations, racism, trayvon martin, white privilege

The time has come to realize that the interracial drama acted out on the American continent has not only created a new black man, it has created a new white man, too. No road whatever will lead Americ...

James Baldwin

The time has come to realize that the interracial drama acted out on the American continent has not only created a new black man, it has created a new white man, too. No road whatever will lead Americ...

Tags: american history, blackness, history, race, race relations, stranger in the village, whiteness, whites

Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings.

Aberjhani

Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings.

Tags: angel art, anti racism, antiracism, appropriate application, coexistence, common ground, cultural boundaries, cultural demographics, cultural differences, cultural heritage

Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

Tim Wise

Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

Tags: american culture, black and white, black history, george zimmerman, hypocricy, privilege, race relations, racism, the oj simpson trial verdict, trayvon martin

There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that must accept . The terrible thing, old buddy, is that must accept A...

James Baldwin

There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that must accept . The terrible thing, old buddy, is that must accept A...

Tags: african americans, inferiority, race relations, racism, superiority, white people

For the history of the American Negro is unique also in this: that the question of his humanity, and of his rights therefore as a human being, became a burning one for several generations of Americans...

James Baldwin

For the history of the American Negro is unique also in this: that the question of his humanity, and of his rights therefore as a human being, became a burning one for several generations of Americans...

Tags: american history, blacks, history, human rights, race, race relations, racism, rights, whites

If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike.

Aberjhani

If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike.

Tags: anti racism, antiracism, belief in nonviolence, children victims of war, civility, coexistence, compassion heals lives, compassion love, compassion wisdom, coping with change

Becoming conscious of racism does not mean you are a racist.

Auliq Ice

Becoming conscious of racism does not mean you are a racist.

Tags: anti racism, anti racist, discrimination, no racism, oppressed, oppression, race relations, racial discrimination, racial injustice, racial superiority
About Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates ( TAH-nə-HAH-see; born September 30, 1975) is an American author, journalist, and activist. He gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at The Atlantic, where he wrote about cultural, social, and political issues, particularly regarding African Americans and white supremacy.
Coates has worked for The Village Voice, Washington City Paper, and Time. He has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, O, and other publications.
He has published three non-fiction books: The Beautiful Struggle, Between the World and Me, and We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. Between the World and Me won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. He has also written a Black Panther series and a Captain America series for Marvel Comics. His first novel, The Water Dancer, was published in 2019.
In 2015 he received a Genius Grant from the MacArthur Foundation.